Earlier, I began last night's websurfing with a check of Egyptology.blogspot.com to see the latest developments. One link there led to an interesting search. I found two interesting sites. One is by Carlo Bergmann, who has done much explorations by camel in the Western desert areas in Egypt:
http://www.carlo-bergmann.de/Discoveries/discovery.htm .

I smiled when I read:

"In Jan. 1999 I set out alone with my caravan in order to find proof of my theory which, in discussions whith Egyptologists, caused them to smile."

Oh, those Egyptologists that don't like challenging ideas!

But he succeeded:

"In March 1999 I finally succeeded when I discovered an ancient donkey road deep in the desert on which I found three waterjar-depots of the "Abu Ballas type", a small number of hieroglyphic inscriptions and on a hill 15 km southwest of Mut (Dakhla) a pharaonic desert police station with jars, head-rests and a hieroglyphic text. This check-point is the first ever found in the Egyptian Western Desert."

"Currently my finds are leading to a re-design of prevailing opinion in Egyptology."

(Note of July 27, 2008)
Oh, yes he inspired them! See this fascinating article featuring all sorts of info and illustrations regarding the donkey trails

Bergmann has a photo of an "image of a donkey on a jar", also. (The donkey is one of the animals associated with Set.)

Bergmann also has photos of griffins scratched into the rocks. Go to http://www.carlo-bergmann.de and click on "Bildergalerie". (Direct link to one: http://www.carlo-bergmann.de/Galery/pages/20.htm).

Following an earlier link trail, I came to another page about rock carvings, "The rock inscriptions at el-Hôsh", by Ilona Regulski, at the British Museum website.

The most interesting one features Horus of Edfu, of which I've done a screen capture:

"In 1936, Winkler published a remarkable scene showing a man kneeling in front of a shrine, which contains an image of Hr BHdtj, ‘Horus of Edfu’ (ATQQ-T32).40 We relocated it in November 2007 on the top of ATQQ (fig. 12). The god’s depiction does double duty as the hieroglyph that spells his name, and unusually the falcon is here crowned with a sun-disc and curled ram horns. Behind the kneeling man is a vertical column identifying him as Hw MsH, ‘the shepherd/warrior Meseh’.41 The name MsH ‘crocodile’ is followed by a determinative of a crocodile, apparently without feet. One attestation, from the Middle Kingdom, is listed by Ranke, but our composition could be later.42"

I have a possible idea about this 'kneeling' pose. (We see Seti I in a similar pose on his altar to Set and Nephthys:)

Look at the position of the hands. If one views Seti I or Meseh from above, what hieroglyph are their arms and hands making?

That's right, the KA hieroglyph!

Could it be this pose is more than just 'adoring the deity', but coming to an understanding of that deity's Ka, and possibly as a model for their own evolving divinity, (aka 'Setamorphosis', for instance)? Egyptologists may not want to hear that idea, but my intuition is telling me there's something to it!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

"Noteworthy Days"
2:04pm

I finally got tired of our filthy kitchen floor and got down to just slip and got down the floor with scrubbing tools. Having finished that and enjoying its 'sparkly' cleanness, I was inspired to give much of our carpet a good going over. The house smells much better, in addition to looking better. Julia felt moved to commemmorate it on our calendar:

"The Great and Glorious Cleaning Day most pleasing to the lares and penates"
(The lares and penates are household gods in the Roman tradition.)

After such hard work excavating dust, hair, threads and various bits, I had a good long nap. Then I threw some clothes on and we met with friends. One loaned us 'Hellboy', which was a fun movie. If we can get our act together, we'll get out to see the second in the series this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I did a drawing: